Tadmor, Zenobia, Rome and Syria

The scenes tell the story of the founding of Pella/Apamea and further development of this city on the Orontes river. Three main groups of scenes can be distinguished: (1) the foundation of Pella-on-the-Orontes by the legendary Archippos, (2) the (re)foundation of the city as Apamea-on-the-Orontes (earlier Pella-on-the-Orontes) by Seleucus I Nikator and the simultaneous financial generosity of his wife, Apama, for the development of the new Seleucid colony in 300 BC, and (3) the raising of the town fortifications around monumental public buildings and an illustration of the daily life of a joyous people living in the rich Apamean agglomeration and hinterland. Features of style date the panels to the 4th century AD.

Do you remember when you thought that you would never know just who many of the people that you heard about in history really were? Well, now that is about to come to an end. The reason why? Because ancient history was an "inside job"-as was the creation of religion. The impression that we were given is that historians and chroniclers of the past were recording events involving ordinary people, giving us a slice of the real life of the people of the time. But what they were really giving was info about about themselves, their family, and royal relatives. Those writers themselves, were among those who were in power at the time, not just random people from among the masses. And that is why we can find out just who those that were writing and who they were about, really were. And, I have known who many of these were for several years now and sharing what I know. Below is the genealogical information showing the descent of 'St. Jerome' from Arrius Calpurnius Piso. It has made me very happy to see the work of others who have exposed the truth in history and whose work has let us all know that what we were once taught was a whitewash of history. We now know that Columbus was not the hero that many of us had once thought. Nor were a number of others who are now being exposed for who they really were. This, is a very exciting time. We are witnessing true history being revealed. They used to think that Nero was a bad guy. Some are now exposing that as a lie. The same goes with Napoleon. And, Mother Theresa has been exposed by Hitchens and others for what she really was. Others had already begun to expose Father Junipero Serra, as a cruel and wicked man who sadistically tortured and killed native Americas who would not submit to conversion to Catholicism. And so, on goes the process of revealing the truth of our past. Some may say that we are "re-writing" history. Well, yes and no. We are simply correcting it with new information. If it is rewriting it, then it is in the same sense that science "re-writes" what we once thought about our world. This is what we call "progress" and advancing our knowledge. We are now well into the 21st Century, and it is about time that we advance accordingly.

In the paper the mythopoetic image of Syria in O.I. Senkovsky's works is analysed.
Senkovsky is a famous founder and promoter of the genre of ''Oriental tales'' in the Russian literature of the 19th century, and the analysis of oriental myths in his work allows us to understand the depth and scope of Russian romantic Orientalism. The main aim of this paper is to present the Syrian field in the works by Senkovsky as a mythological construct.
For O.I. Senkovsky Syria is one of the meaningful parts of the Orient, which he mythologized for
many years of his life by different sides of his talent (scientific, artistic and journalistic). At the same time, united in the field of irony and self-irony, different approaches of Senkovsky formed a mythopoetic model of Syria as an Oriental country, which for many centuries had conceptual importance for the development of Russian culture.
The concept of Syria is most clearly reflected in two Senkovsky's texts: Antar (1832) and Memories of Syria (1834). In Memories of Syria Senkovsky positions himself as an enlightened European yearning to learn the Arabic language and having a real prestige among the Syrian natives, who call him ''Frank''
or ''Khawaja Yusuf''. In describing the nature of Syria Senkovsky is consistent in forming a mythopoetic space that influences human consciousness.
The oriental tale Antar seems to us the most representative for Syrian mythopoetics. The main structural elements of the Syrian construct in Antar include: a) mythopoetics and mystification of character names, b) formation of ''qasida'' discourse, and c) Biblical and Quranic context of the mythologems of
the Great Queen and the King-Founder.
Senkovsky consciously plays with the reader as a professional orientalist, he reduces historical and literary facts to the level of mass consciousness and represents Antar as a text of his oriental mythologizing. But for the archaeological value the ruins of Tadmor (Palmyra) represent mainly the cultural
and mythological value for Senkovsky, related to the sphere of Russian culture in connection with the metaphor of St. Petersburg as Northern Palmyra.
In addition to the ancient context, the image of Tadmor should be considered in the context of mythopoetics of the Bible and the Quran, because there are allusions in Antar that refer to the image of King Solomon, the Biblical myth of Tadmor's founding and the Quranic myth about the love between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba Balqis.
Syrian desert was not an entourage in the Oriental tales of Senkovsky. The main function of Senkovsky's mythopoetics of Syria was to form a rich in meanings reasoning field of Russia and of the contemporary Russian Romantic literature in the context of Russian and Western European Orientalism in the 19th century

: L’Histoire Auguste, qui considère généralement les intrusions féminines sur la scène politique comme catastrophiques, trace un portrait étrangement positif de la reine Zénobie. Celui-ci n’a pas uniquement pour but de rabaisser le pessimus princeps Gallien : en attribuant à une souveraine dont il souligne par ailleurs les mœurs perses les vertus du bon empereur, l’auteur dénonce d’abord les insuffisances des Césars contemporains. Sa Zénobie, héritière des mythiques reines guerrières orientales, est également un élément de la mythistoria omniprésente dans l’œuvre. Et elle constituait certainement, avec son ministre Longin, un personnage-clef des lectures du « cercle » des Nicomaque-Symmaque dont est issu le biographe.
The Historia Augusta, which generally considers female intrusions on the political scene as catastrophic, draws a strangely positive portrait of Queen Zenobia. The purpose of this portrait is not only to lower the pessimus princeps Gallienus ; by attributing the virtues of the good emperor to an oriental queen, the author wants firstly to expose the incompetence of contemporary Caesars. His Zenobia, heiress of the mythical warrior queens of the East is also a figure of the mythistoria which is omnipresent in the work. And she certainly was, with his minister Longinus, an important character of the cultural debates of Nicomachus-Symmachus’« circle » which le biographer belonged to.

Diverse voorgaande artikelen over de situatie van de Christelijke Arameeërs van Irak hebben geleid tot E-mails en discussies over de nationale identiteit en de naam van de Arameeërs.
http://www.aramnahrin.org/Dutch/PseudoAssyriers_PseudoChaldeeers_Arameeers_19_12_2008.htm

Siria. Dopo la demolizione del Leone di Allat salta in aria anche il Tempio di Baalshamin. Un gesto che potrebbe svelare la vera strategia dello Stato islamico, che da un lato distrugge e dall’altro risparmia tutto ciò che può essere fonte di guadagno